The Liberal Media
I've always been one that maintains that the mainstream media is quite leftist. My more liberal friends have claimed I'm nuts. Well I'm starting to come around. Why? Well I've been introduced to the world of podcasting and real leftist media.
I subscribed to a bunch of podcasts that sounded interesting. One of them is called '2600, the Hackers Quarterly: Off the Wall'. I thought "Cool, a L33t computer show." My mistake. Basically the guys on the the show talk about politics from what I would catagorize as an anarchist viewpoint. Their overwhelming contention is that all government is bad.
I appreciate the change of perspective, and I'll continue to listen to these New York elitists, but some of the things they say make me question their understanding of reality. I know that I'm taking them out of context, but I assure you I'm not coloring the meaning by much.
Some quotes from the show anchor (Emmanual Goldstein, aka Eric Corley) include:
About the bombings in London: "Tony Blair has succeeded in bringing a little Iraq to London."
I see, so the bombings are Tony Blair's fault. Stop the investigations, we now know Tony Blair is behind this horrendous act.
"All the media could talk about after the London bombings was how Wall Street would be affected."
I was watching MSNBC after the bombing and yes, they talked a lot about what stocks would be affected by the bombing. Why? IT WAS THEIR FINANCE SHOW. THAT'S WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT. No other new outlets or shows even mentioned the affect of the bombing on the markets. One of the other guys on the show pointed this out and was discounted immediately.
"...this cop racially profiled himself he said, 'How does a small Chinese guy like me fit in a car like this?' I was like, why are you being racist towards yourself. Apparently this is something you get taught in the (Philadelphia) police department."
Nice. No Comment.
There's a real undercurrent of distrust with these guys. They distrust the government, they distrust corporations, they distrust the mainstream media. After listening for a couple of shows its clear that they have no faith in anything other then themselves. Sad.
They make many good points, mostly about personal freedom and privacy, but their tone of distrust really undermines their credibility with me.
Another show I've listened to is 'DemocracyNow'. The 2600 guy interviewed Amy Goodwin from Democracy Now about their show. Amy was very angry with the media and their 'complicity' with the Bush administration. She went on and on about all the thing that the Bush administration has done that she takes issue with. Fine. Then she says "But we're not partisan. We go after both sides." I said, "Great, let's hear some examples of what she's gone after liberals for." She then gave examples from an interview she had with Bill Clinton while he was still in office. Everyone of her 'hard hitting' questions were basically attacking Clinton for being to far to the right.
Basically she goes 'after both sides' by attacking conservatism in any party.
My favorite quote: "We're supposed to be there to bring out the full diversity of opinion...Its not just about a Truth, but about the many Truths."
The implication being that there's no such thing as 'truth' and if there was she wasn't responsible to report it.
These podcasts are pretty interesting and very eye opening. I'll probably continue to report on these shows in the coming months.
Carl
I subscribed to a bunch of podcasts that sounded interesting. One of them is called '2600, the Hackers Quarterly: Off the Wall'. I thought "Cool, a L33t computer show." My mistake. Basically the guys on the the show talk about politics from what I would catagorize as an anarchist viewpoint. Their overwhelming contention is that all government is bad.
I appreciate the change of perspective, and I'll continue to listen to these New York elitists, but some of the things they say make me question their understanding of reality. I know that I'm taking them out of context, but I assure you I'm not coloring the meaning by much.
Some quotes from the show anchor (Emmanual Goldstein, aka Eric Corley) include:
About the bombings in London: "Tony Blair has succeeded in bringing a little Iraq to London."
I see, so the bombings are Tony Blair's fault. Stop the investigations, we now know Tony Blair is behind this horrendous act.
"All the media could talk about after the London bombings was how Wall Street would be affected."
I was watching MSNBC after the bombing and yes, they talked a lot about what stocks would be affected by the bombing. Why? IT WAS THEIR FINANCE SHOW. THAT'S WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT. No other new outlets or shows even mentioned the affect of the bombing on the markets. One of the other guys on the show pointed this out and was discounted immediately.
"...this cop racially profiled himself he said, 'How does a small Chinese guy like me fit in a car like this?' I was like, why are you being racist towards yourself. Apparently this is something you get taught in the (Philadelphia) police department."
Nice. No Comment.
There's a real undercurrent of distrust with these guys. They distrust the government, they distrust corporations, they distrust the mainstream media. After listening for a couple of shows its clear that they have no faith in anything other then themselves. Sad.
They make many good points, mostly about personal freedom and privacy, but their tone of distrust really undermines their credibility with me.
Another show I've listened to is 'DemocracyNow'. The 2600 guy interviewed Amy Goodwin from Democracy Now about their show. Amy was very angry with the media and their 'complicity' with the Bush administration. She went on and on about all the thing that the Bush administration has done that she takes issue with. Fine. Then she says "But we're not partisan. We go after both sides." I said, "Great, let's hear some examples of what she's gone after liberals for." She then gave examples from an interview she had with Bill Clinton while he was still in office. Everyone of her 'hard hitting' questions were basically attacking Clinton for being to far to the right.
Basically she goes 'after both sides' by attacking conservatism in any party.
My favorite quote: "We're supposed to be there to bring out the full diversity of opinion...Its not just about a Truth, but about the many Truths."
The implication being that there's no such thing as 'truth' and if there was she wasn't responsible to report it.
These podcasts are pretty interesting and very eye opening. I'll probably continue to report on these shows in the coming months.
Carl
posted by Carl at 11:29 AM
1 Comments:
I'm working on this one. Mark's been over to my page, where I've been doing some New Political Science regarding ideological preferences. I'm in the process of building a model that not only describes ideological preferences, but also explains why some and not others see a particular political actor (in your example, the 'media') as holding a bias.
If you're interested, I'd like to hear from you over at http://theleotest.typepad.com.
jonathon
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